From Movieclips, here’s a stirring compilation of clips edited together to show the journey from birth to death, as told by cinema. The voice-over is largely taken from an Orson Welles clip from F for Fake , in which he quotes from Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The Conundrum of the Workshops,” though other musings come from Nicolas Cage’s Charlie Kaufman in Adaptation.
It’s worth pointing out that Welles’ narration—and, therefore, the clips—are predominantly from a male perspective, which is not uncommon in the movies. But the montage otherwise culls from a large and varied swath of the cinema, and I’m willing to bet that the power of how it’s woven together is universal.
